


Something to Run To

by grandconflagration



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Night Vale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6732829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandconflagration/pseuds/grandconflagration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has trouble turning his brain off. Maybe the team can help him find something to occupy his thoughts...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something to Run To

It's Pepper's fault, really. If you have to blame someone.

When Steve runs, it clears his head. The physical effort isn’t really effort for him, but the repetitive pounding of shoes on pavement creates a sort of white noise that he loves because it keeps his mind from the mile-a-minute worrying he tends to do through the rest of the day.

It doesn’t work that way for Bucky. His mind runs as fast as his super-soldier body. He always wants to go on runs with Steve, but Steve would suddenly find himself catching his boyfriend and lowering him to the ground safely while soothing him through a panic attack.

After this had happened several times, they were at the breakfast bar in the tower’s common area one morning, each with a pile of waffles with peanut butter (a quirk of Nat’s that they’d both picked up because being a super soldier requires lots of calories to burn).  
Steve was picking at his food. “Bucky.” He flashed him that half smile he’d been told was charming, knowing that it probably came off more like a grimace right now. “Maybe it’s not the best idea for you to go with me.” Steve was terrified to tell Bucky he couldn’t do something, both from a he-was-recently-brainwashed point of view and from an I-don’t-want-to-fight-with-my-boyfriend point of view.  
And sure enough, Bucky’s face fell.  
“I mean, I love having you with me,” Steve blubbered, putting his hand on Bucky’s where it lay resting on his gym-shorts-clad leg. “I just think… we need to do some problem solving.”  
Bucky remained silent, chewing on the inside of his cheek.   
Steve felt his own face go red. “Buck, come on. Tell me what will help.”  
“I’ll think about it,” he mumbled. “Go, run. I’m going back to bed.” He stood quickly and turned, not even looking back at Steve when he got to the elevator bank at the end of the hall.  
Steve went the other way, toward the stairs. He really needed that mind-clearing run.  
And on his way back, he picked up an extra large box of Bucky’s favorite chocolates.

When Steve got back to the tower, Bucky was standing at the window in their bedroom with a dry-erase marker in his hand. The tension Steve had been feeling since their talk melted when he saw the smile on Bucky’s face.  
“Did you know how much shit you can listen to on one of these things? And it goes with you everywhere you go!” Bucky held up an iPhone.  
Steve chuckled at what an old man his boyfriend was. And what an old man he was, as he hadn’t even considered the idea of auditory distraction that could be carried around while running laps around the city. “What’s on the window?” he asked.  
“Well, as a scientist--” (Steve rolled his eyes at the giant nerd he was in love with) “-- I knew that I don’t know a damned thing about what people listen to, and that the only way to find what will work best to cure my little problem was to experiment. So I started with a survey.”  
Steve squinted at the window. He saw now that it was a list of the names of all their friends followed by what he assumed is what they listened to regularly. He stepped closer so that he could read the whole list, putting the chocolates down on the dresser on his way.  
Bucky sidled up to him and put an arm around Steve’s waist. “Sorry about earlier,” he said quietly. “I know you’re looking out for me. It’s just… I hate that you have to look out for me. And that looking out for me sounds like I can’t do what you do.”  
Steve gave him a peck on the lips, then leaned his head against the side of Bucky’s. “You know,” he said, “I’m not glad you feel that way. But all I can think of are those times in Brooklyn, back when I was a kid, and how often I felt the same way. You’d say, ‘No, Stevie, you need to stay in today. It’s below freezing out there.’ I felt…” He trailed off. He could never find the words for what his life was like then, especially with the dichotomy of knowing what it felt like to be a super soldier who never gets sick or has to feel frail. But he remembered, and he dreamed of those days when his whole body, all ninety pounds of it, ached and shook and failed him.  
It wasn’t Bucky’s body failing him now, but Steve could see the parallel between a body you couldn’t control and a brain you couldn’t control. He put his arm around Bucky’s waist and squeezed him close. “Okay. So, where do we start? What do we need to download first?”

The first day, Bucky listened to what Tony called “classic rock.” Bucky scoffed at this even during the run, devising ways to make Tony feel uncomfortable about calling something that hadn’t been recorded until Bucky and Steve were 50 years old “classic.” He settled on convincing Jarvis to play his favorite songs from the 1930s whenever Tony asked for classic rock.  
So the classic rock did divert Bucky’s attention, but not in the way that they had intended. After two days of that, Bucky caught a glimpse of Steve frowning as he removed the earphones yet again to argue some point about how he wasn’t really that old. “You punk,” he said. “Why didn’t you yell at me for disturbing your run?”  
Steve laughed at how hurt Bucky looked at this. “Sorry,” he said. “Stop being a jerk and move to the next option on your list.”

Taylor Swift (openly a favorite of Sam and secretly a favorite of Clint, who evaded Bucky’s questions about what he listened to until Sam told everyone that Clint had borrowed his copy of Red and never returned it) lasted longer than Steve thought she would. Steve always found her a bit ridiculous, but she reminded Bucky sometimes of the girls he used to go out with when he was young. It took him three days to get over the nostalgia and remember with clarity how he spent those nights out dancing with adoring girls pretending it was Steve he was holding in his arms. Then he started thinking about all the time he’d missed out on with Steve, and how he wanted to change the past, both before and after his time with Hydra, and suddenly he was in the throes of another panic attack.

“No more T. Swift,” Bucky mumbled as he and Steve sat on their bed in the darkened room, with Steve running his fingers through Bucky’s hair.  
“No more T. Swift, babe.” 

Nat’s favorites of Tchaikovsky and Megadeth (the combination of which caused Tony to roll his eyes hard enough that Nat threw an entire basket of dinner rolls at him at the last family dinner) caused Bucky to lose his running rhythm. Same with Banner’s jazz.

One of the kids that was interning in the lab got Bucky stuck on Hozier for a whole two weeks. But when he had all the songs memorized, his mind started wandering again.

Steve was afraid that nothing would work. And he would give anything to keep Bucky from looking at him like he did the last time he suggested he run alone.

It wasn’t until the following movie night that Pepper was finally around. In honor of Bucky’s quest (or to get back at him for convincing Jarvis to get rid of all his favorite playlists), Tony had picked a lineup of musicals ranging from Singing in the Rain to The Producers to Rent. Thor and Jane were there too and insisted they watch Hairspray because it was inexplicably Thor’s favorite movie.  
“He just likes Zac Efron,” Jane said, snuggling up to Thor on the loveseat.  
“Ugh, we’re watching the remake?” Clint scoffed from his perch on the back of the sofa.  
“You guys are so weird. And there’s no way Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is going to run with ‘Big, Blonde, and Beautiful’’ blasting in his ears,” Darcy called as she carried a giant bowl of popcorn in from the kitchen.  
Thor immediately turned toward Darcy to once again extoll the beauty of the message of Hairspray.  
Pepper walked in and gave them a wide berth, instead settling in on the floor in front of Tony’s favorite chair. Pepper turned to Bucky, who was lounging on the couch with his legs draped over Steve’s and his head on Nat’s leg. “Does it have to be music?” she asked.  
Bucky twisted his head around to look at her. “No, I guess not,” he said. “What else is there?”  
Pepper shrugged. “Usually I just listen to NPR.”  
“What’s NPR?” Bucky pushed himself to a sitting position.  
“National public radio.”  
“People still listen to the radio?” Steve asked with a furrowed brow.  
“Seriously, Steve?” she replied. “What have you been doing with your time since you woke up?”  
“Ouch, Pepper. That hurts me.”  
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Stop being a punk, Steve.”  
“She started it.”  
“What’s on NPR?”  
That’s when Tony hit play on the movie, and suddenly everyone was distracted and transfixed by Thor belting out the opening lines to ‘Good Morning Baltimore.’ In fact, he had the whole movie memorized. Watching Thor recite Hairspray was the most entertaining movie night they’d had in a long time.

Pepper and Bucky sat in the common kitchen with tea late that night, bent over Bucky’s iPhone.

The next morning, Bucky was up and eating protein bars before Steve even rolled out of bed.  
“I feel good about this,” Bucky said with a smile. Under that smile, though, Steve could read that look of concern that Bucky had so often. In his head he called the combination of concern and smile ‘Bucky’s brave face,’ and every time he saw it he sent up a prayer that the bravery would be rewarded.  
Through their run that morning, Steve kept glancing over at Bucky. Bucky’s face was full of concentration, sometimes cut with concern or amusement.  
When they got back to the tower, Steve sat at the breakfast bar while Bucky pulled eggs and cheese out of the refrigerator. He waited for Bucky to say something as he scrambled a dozen eggs on the stovetop, but Bucky was silent.  
“Well?” he finally asked.  
“Well what?” Bucky stirred the eggs again, then turned to face Steve.  
“How was NPR?”  
“It was…” Bucky wiped his hands on the towel slung over his shoulder. “I think it’s what I need. The talking. It made me think, so much more than the music did.”  
“So what did you think about today?”  
“Well, this morning, I just listened to a live stream of WNYC. Morning Edition. Did you know there’s a dude that can solve a Rubik’s cube in less than 6 seconds? We should make you try. I mean, super soldier problem-solving and muscle memory…” Bucky dissolved into laughter as he tossed the hand towel at Steve. Before Steve could toss it back, Bucky had grabbed the pan from the stove and was dishing out eggs on two plates.

The next morning after their run, Bucky asked Steve if it was okay for him to turn on the radio in their apartment (or, more accurately, ask Jarvis to play the radio). He turns to WNYC just in time for StoryCorps to begin.  
And suddenly a woman named Glenda was talking about how she fell in love with a woman in the 1940s and couldn’t do anything about it. A woman who didn’t get to grow old with the woman she loved.  
Steve was standing with his eyes closed, just standing in the middle of the room as if he had been frozen in place.  
“Stevie?” Bucky put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. Steve pulled Bucky toward him and buried his head in Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky squeezed him. “I love you, too, punk.”  
“Jerk.” The response was muffled in Bucky’s hair.

“Have you downloaded the podcasts?” Tony asked one afternoon when he once again walked into the kitchen to hear Kai Ryssdal discussing finances.  
“What’s a podcast?” Bucky continued to hand condiments to Steve, who was lining them up on the counter beside a tower of bread and lunch meats.  
Tony does his dramatic eye roll again. “All this time and obsession, and you’re still living behind the iron curtain.”  
“Jarvis, please turn the volume up. I need to drown out this annoying sound.”  
“Right away, Sergeant Barnes.”  
“Nice. Thanks, Jarvis.” Tony hoists himself onto the counter and grabs the jar of pickles that Steve had just put down. “Anyway, back to me being nice despite all the disrespect in my own house, podcasts. Downloadable episodes of all this high-quality content. Most high-quality of which are, of course, the episodes of Radiolab that I did. Did you know that people really love to hear me explain science?”  
Bucky scoffed.  
“Excuse me, Sergeant?”  
“No offense, Mr. Iron Man, sir, but I’ve spent large amounts of time in your labs, and from what I’ve seen, people do not love to hear you explain science.”  
“Then why do you spend so much time in my lab?”  
Bucky turned to hand Steve a bottle of mustard. “Other than not wanting my arm to explode?”  
Steve pulled three plates out of the cabinet. “Bucky is a science nerd. We all know this.”  
“Punk.” Bucky closed the refrigerator and started helping Steve assemble sandwiches. After a few seconds of silence he turned to Steve and said, “We can skip the Tony episodes, right?”  
Steve smirked and looked at Tony out of the corner of his eye. “I never know what Tony is talking about. I already know that.”  
“You guys are the worst.” Tony grabbed one of the sandwiches that Steve had put together, leaving the plate behind. He took a giant bite before saying, “Seriously, though. Podcasts. Do it.” He headed back toward the elevators.  
“See you later in the lab!” Bucky called after him.

And he meant to, really, but once he started listening to Radiolab podcasts, he didn’t stop for the next 10 hours. Steve had to beg him to turn it off or at least put headphones on so that he could go to sleep. The next day Steve woke up to find that Bucky had queued up Storycorps podcasts for Steve. After their run, they stocked up on snacks from the kitchen, which they piled in the middle of their bed. They listened to Storycorps for a few hours, then found the rest of the NPR podcasts. Steve’s favorite was Ask Me Another, but mostly because he loved watching Bucky laugh, the way he threw his head back with abandon. It’s something that had been slowly coming back, that much light in those blue eyes that he loved so much.

There was a family dinner that night. When Steve and Bucky walked into the common room late, Nat smirked at Sam and wiggled her eyebrows. Tony stepped in between them. “Some super spy.”  
Nat swatted at him.  
“Now you know I’d love more than anyone to think that there were day-long sexcapades going on in my tower, but I’m pretty sure these giant nerds were locked in their bedroom listening to NPR podcasts all day.”  
“Seriously, Rogers?” Nat looked appalled. All your virginal years and you’re not taking advantage of this gorgeous man you finally have back?”  
Steve’s face was as red as his Cap boots. Bucky tapped him with his hip and put on his most charming smile. “Babe, it’s been ages since ‘virginal’ could be applied to this man.” Steve smacked him in the arm, but he continued. “Just because we choose to be educated doesn’t mean we’re not perfectly fine in all areas of our relationship.”  
“TMI, guys. TMI.” Sam shot daggers with his eyes at Nat and Tony and walked back to the kitchen.   
“I agree,” Steve said, and followed Sam into the kitchen to help with food.  
Sam was stirring sauce when he walked in. “So.”  
“What?” Steve hoisted himself onto the counter.  
“Bucky seems… better.” Sam placed the spoon across the top of the pot and turned to Steve.  
Steve smiled. “He does, doesn’t he? I really… the podcasts were just supposed to be for running, something to distract him and keep the panic at bay. But…”  
“They’ve become something else. I told you he needed a hobby.”  
“When did you tell me he needed a hobby?”  
“Maybe I told you that you needed a hobby.”  
Steve threw a dinner roll at Sam. “I happen to be a very well-rounded individual. I run, and I sketch…”  
“Yes. What an impressive list of skills.”  
“And I could kick your ass.”  
“Language, Rogers.”  
Tony’s voice called in from the other room: “Bring us food, bird boy!”  
Sam rolled his eyes. “I’m going to poison Tony now, okay?”  
“I have a better idea. The NPR pledge drive is next week, and I bet we can convince Jarvis to send Tony’s money to a good cause…”  
The timer for the pasta went off, and they got to work getting the meal together.  
“Hey,” Sam said as he piled Steve’s arms with food for the team.  
“Hey?” Steve replied.  
“Have you listened to anything other than NPR podcasts?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well, since you’re both giant mushy nerds, I think you’d like my favorite weird sci-fi-ish fictional podcast. Welcome to Night Vale. Do me a favor and check it out, okay?”

Within two months Steve and Bucky were at a live Night Vale show cosplaying Cecilos. The image of Bucky in a lab coat and “A scientist is always fine” t-shirt, standing next to Steve who Bucky managed to convince to wear furry purple pants, a sweater vest, and fake tentacle tattoos, was the most reblogged image online for the next week.  
It didn’t take too much convincing for Steve to turn himself into Cecil for a night. He would do anything for his science nerd boyfriend, especially since it was the first time since 1943 that he’d seen Bucky relax in a crowd. While the musical guest played before the show started, he watched Bucky from the corner of his eye and said a silent thank you in his head to the technological advances that made this possible. Technological advances that actually made the world seem like a more familiar place. He would never have been able to predict that this weird combination of audio media would create a turning point in Bucky’s recovery.  
He leaned over and put his head on Bucky/Carlos’s shoulder. They had a way to go, both of them, in catching up with the world, but more than ever Steve was convinced that they’d find these bright spots that would bring them closer together and make the twenty-first century feel like home.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation with http://gatesofivoryandhorn.tumblr.com/
> 
> And then the headcanon I suddenly had of Stucky cosplaying Cecilos...


End file.
